1. Technical Field
The present inventive concept relates to a memory system.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Memory devices may be classified as volatile memory devices and nonvolatile memory devices. The volatile memory devices lose stored data in the absence of power. The volatile memory devices include static random access memories (SRAMs), dynamic RAMs (DRAMs) and a synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), for example. The nonvolatile memory devices retain stored data in the absence of power. The nonvolatile memory devices include a flash memory, a read only memory (ROM), programmable ROMs (PROMs), electrically erasable and programmable ROMs (EEPROMs), resistive memories (e.g., phase-change RAM (PRAM), ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), resistive RAM (RRAM), etc., for example.
If the size of a flash memory block increases (for example, if 2 Kbytes are stored in a page), an execution time of a full block merge is increased. In particular, in a memory system having a time-out, the frequency of performing a merge operation may increase. In addition, at the same density, as a block size increases, the number of blocks is reduced, and thus, the number of free blocks that can be controlled by a controller is reduced. As a consequence, write performance of the flash memory may be lowered, and block operation may be adversely impacted.